1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a lens sheet and a printer capable of carrying out printing over the lens sheet.
2. Related Art
In some of various printing techniques, a print image is printed on a recording layer of a lens sheet including a lenticular lens having a large number of cylindrical convex lenses (which will be hereinafter referred to as convex lenses) arranged in parallel with each other (see Japanese Patent No. 3471930 (for example, paragraph Nos. 0066 to 0076 and FIGS. 1, 5, 8 and 9)).
In the printing technique, a large number of stripe-like subdivided images corresponding to a pitch of the convex lens are arranged and recorded on the recording layer of the lens sheet. In accordance with a type of the subdivided image, an image to be observed visually can be a three-dimensional image (a stereoscopic vision) or a moving image (an animation) with an observation angle changed. In a printing operation to be carried out over the lens sheet, generally, there is employed an arrangement in which a convex lens array is vertical or transverse with respect to both eyes (see Japanese Patent No. 3471930 (for example, paragraph Nos. 0066 to 0076 and FIGS. 1, 5, 8 and 9)).
In the art described in the Japanese Patent No. 3471930 (for example, paragraph Nos. 0066 to 0076 and FIGS. 1, 5, 8 and 9), however, the number of parallaxes to be dealt with is limited due to a printing width in a convex lens or a printing width is decreased with an increase in the number of parallaxes. The number of parallaxes easily influences a smoothness of an image and a printing width per parallax influences picture quality.
As a countermeasure to be taken, it can be proposed that a subdivided image is printed obliquely with respect to the lens sheet. In the method, however, the image is printed on the lens sheet having a larger area than an area of a necessary image portion and only the image portion is cut out of the lens sheet after the printing operation. The cut-out work wastes a residual portion of the lens sheet if any.